"The Giver" proves to be mind-opening and inspiring

Following the plotline of the book that inspired it, “The Giver” was released in theaters Aug. 15 this year, though the book was released in 1993. This is an inspiring and mind-opening film about the experience of life, of its joys and of its sorrows.

Jonas Mast, a coming-of-age 17 year old, leads a normal and predictable life in a futuristic community. Everything is as it should be. Every hour of every day is planned and executed with precision. But when Jonas is selected as the next Receiver of Memory at the ceremony of 18, his world as he knows it becomes a lie. He learns, through a man he only knows as The Giver, that things were not always as they are now. That there were animals. Snow. Sun. Pain. He begins to long for what is past, for what he cannot have. However, when things take a drastic turn, Jonas might have to face everything that he has been protected from.

Though it only loosely follows the book, “The Giver” is truly an amazing movie that opens your mind not only to what life could be like in the absence of everything familiar, but how amazing those familiar things are. I found the movie to be captivating in film quality and very easy to understand. The only thing I didn’t like about the movie was that it didn’t quite follow the book as much as I would have liked, but it made up for it in both quality acting and captivating film. "The Giver" will be released on DVD Nov. 25.